THE ULTIMATE IN FITNESS TRAINING
The 15 Minute Workout is brilliant and I cannot recommend it highly enough but, if you want to burn fat like a crazy thing with crazy written all over it then this is The Undisputed Champion of workouts. Please meet your new regime.
TABATA PROTOCOL
The originator Dr. Izumi Tabata and his team at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo found that aerobic exercise burns fat at a lower rate than HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) it also burns muscle tissue as your body needs to fuel itself whilst going through long periods of cardio vascular work outs. This is why anyone wanting to bulk muscle is not advised to go for a long run after a weights session.
In their research they also concluded aerobic exercise has a limited ability to not only move your fitness further but also your cardio vascular workout. Tabata (HIIT) uses explosive exercise engaging both anaerobic (muscle) and aerobic (cardio vascular) movements to not only take you to TOTAL physical fitness making not only your muscles stronger and healthier but your whole cadrio vascular system. Take a long distance runner for instance then compare their physique to a sprinter. The sprinter has larger muscles and lower body fat index. The long distance runner is a much smaller frame with a lot less muscle tone. Sprinting by its essence is a HIIT sport. I would like to point out at this juncture that both are amazing athletes and I am in no way slighting the long distance runner. However, if you want a more defined physique you don't want to be burning away your muscle in training.
Extended time consuming aerobic workouts do reduce fat, but, HIIT burns fat way more effectively and does not take from 30 mins to an hour or two to get through. Dr. Izumi and his colleagues Tabata Protocol only takes 4 minutes.
It is worth noting that if you were doing a low intensity workout for an hour you would be burning fat in that time. However, when you have done 4 minutes of Tabata you are increasing your metabolism and burning fat for hours afterwards.
If you are reading this and are worried about your energy levels I strongly suggest you start with the 15 minute workout and once you have mastered that you can then move on to interval training.
Interval Training is when you take an exercise such as pressups or squats do them as hard and fast as you can for 1 minute then rest for two. When you are comfortable with this then you can mix it up with Hindu pressups, jump squats, skipping, high knees . . . what ever you like. When you can easily do this then it is time to take on Tabata Protocol.
It is safe to say this is not for beginners although, if you think you can then give it a go!
This is how to work into your training. If you are pretty fit then move up a level at the end of each week. HOWEVER, if you start this and don't feel ready to move to the next level, don't, as the worse thing you can do is feel like you are failing. Remember as long as you are training and moving forward you can NEVER fail. Even if you stayed at Level 1 for 2 months, you would still see astounding results!
If you love workout DVD's this tabata(TM): The Official Workout DVD
gives you all the instruction and some great exercises to get you well on your way.
To see the preview JUST CLICK HERE
